What a grown-up feeling it gives a boy to let himself in at the back door at two o'clock in the morning, after a coon hunt, only the boy knows.
There is a special halo that surrounds Thanksgiving day in the country. With what zest the normal country boy enters into this glad festal day.
He does not like picking chickens and turkeys, but he does his part at that fussy work.
There is more fun in cracking the nuts, and getting the largest, reddest apples and polishing them to make them shine and selecting the largest bunches of grapes from the storehouse. Then to put in the last two hours before dinner in just loafing about, smelling the tantalizing odors.
Going away to the great woods to cut the Christmas tree does not really come under the pleasures of autumn, but I always associate that sacred duty with this season of the year. If it is a green Christmas and the day is warm, it may still look quite like autumn, but more frequently there is snow on the ground.
